Your whole life you’ve been searching for “The One” but for some reason, you just kept ending up with the wrong guys. You’ve always resented your exes for breaking your heart, but when you finally meet the man of your dreams, you realize some very important things.

You deserved so much better. When you meet your forever guy, you’re finally loved the way you always wanted to be. For some reason, your exes never fully satisfied your emotional needs. You always wanted more from them. You wanted them to be the men you thought they could be and not the men they actually were. Eventually, you started to think that you were setting your sights too high, but when you meet “The One,” you realize that you did deserve a love that moved mountains, and now you finally know what that feels like.

They clearly weren’t right for you. When you meet the real guy you’re meant to be with, you realize that all those excuses for why you’re no longer with your ex are total BS. The bottom line is that you just weren’t right for each other. You may have thought it was right at the time and maybe even after, but meeting the guy you’re ACTUALLY supposed to be with makes you realize that there was never anything wrong with you. You weren’t the reason for your breakup and maybe neither was your ex because, at the end of the day, you just weren’t meant to be.

Trying to get back together was just a waste of time. Before you meet your guy, you might from time to time wonder if one of your exes was right for you but it was just bad timing, they just needed to grow up a bit, or even that they just didn’t realize how right you were for each other. Your exes were never going to change for you. They are who they are and now you can finally accept that without resentment.

One woman should be enough. Every ex who cheated and every guy who had to see what else was out there and spread his seed—meeting “The One” makes you realize what toxic jerks they all were. The man you’re going to spend the rest of your life with doesn’t need more. You are 100% enough for him. He doesn’t need other women to feel fulfilled because he loves you and only you inside and out.

Everyone is busy but the right man makes time for you. Your exes may have used every excuse in the book when it came to why they just didn’t have time to spend time with you, but the truth is they could have made the time if they really wanted to. The one for you will actually want to spend time with you because he loves being with you. He might have a million things on his list, but unlike with your exes, he’ll do anything he can just to see you.

A man should care about your happiness. Under no circumstances is it a man’s job to make you happy, but he should care about whether or not your life is good. Your exes may not have cared about how their actions affected you, but that’s not how real love works. A man who’s really in love cares about how you feel because at the end of the day, your happiness is just as important to him as his own.

There’s a healthy way to have a relationship fight. All couples fight, but if you can’t communicate your way to resolution then you’re fighting a losing battle. You learn to pick and choose your battles and you stop creating fights when you’re bored with the relationship. Why? Because you both care enough about the relationship to make things work. You’re fighting for your love instead of fighting against each other like you did with your exes.

You shouldn’t have to beg for a man’s love. Meeting “The One” shows you how natural love can be. You shouldn’t have to force a man’s hand just for him to treat you right. His love should come without you having to ask. While your exes may have used love as a reward and taken it away as a punishment, the one will just give and give because his love is truly unconditional.

The man you have now is worth all the pain your exes put you through. It’s true. It might not feel like love is worth it when you’re in the center of heartbreak, but that pain goes away and those wounds finally heal. You were left scarred by your exes, but when you meet “The One,” you finally stop feeling damaged. You stop hating or resenting your exes because honestly, it took being with them to get you to where you are now and you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

If he’s really interested, he won’t be afraid to make an effort. Your exes only gave you a piece of their heart because their interest in you had its limitations. When you meet your forever guy, you’ll realize that a man can only give you his whole heart when his love has no bounds. You’ll figure out that a man should be all in or you’ll be nothing to each other at all.

It doesn’t matter who moves on first. In fact, once you meet your guy, your exes’ lives won’t really matter to you at all. They’re things of your past but now you’re focused on the future. Meeting him means you’ve met the person you’re going to spend the rest of your life with. The men that came before him are long gone and for once in your life, you can fully say not a single part of you wants them back. They have new lives and so do you, but whatever is going on with them is no longer of interest to you.

You didn’t “need” your exes. You may have thought you couldn’t live without them but you can, you did, and you are. You accomplished what you thought was impossible—you let go and you moved the hell on. You’re doing perfectly fine without them. In fact, you’re the best you’ve ever been because you now know real love and you now know your exes were no comparison.

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Kelsey Dykstra
Kelsey Dykstra is a freelance writer based in Huntington Beach, CA. She has been blogging for over four years and writing her whole life. Originally from Michigan, this warm weather seeker relocated to the OC just last summer. She enjoys writing her own fictional pieces, reading a variety of young adult novels, binging on Netflix, and of course soaking up the sun.